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The adage that everything old is new again has perhaps never been proven quite so royally as with Patricia Hastings and her heritage wheat.

Hastings, who has a farm near Stirling, Ont., which is north of Belleville and (just) within a 100-mile radius of Ottawa, got her hands on a small bag of heritage seeds of Red Fife Wheat about a decade ago.

"I think I got it from a fellow in the prairies who got it from a researcher," she says. "It was nearly non-existent then."

And yet Red Fife wheat once made Canada famous. It was brought to Canada from Scotland by David Fife, who farmed in the 1840s very near where Hastings farms now. In the mid-1800s, its use spread from the Peterborough area to the prairies and helped make Canada "the breadbasket of the world."

It took Hastings four years of growing, harvesting and replanting the near-extinct heritage seed before she had a big enough crop of Red Fife Wheat to make it worth milling. "And then I discovered that it has a unique flavour and that it really is very well suited for growing in this area."

But she wasn’t quite prepared for what happened next. The flour was eagerly snapped up by leading chefs, such as Toronto's Jamie Kennedy, bakeries, such as Kingston's Pan Chancho, and gourmet food companies, such as Evelyn's Crackers.

When Kennedy organized an organic dinner for Prince Charles at Toronto's Brickworks, he asked Hastings to attend and to contribute her flour. Prince Charles was so taken with the heritage wheat with a Scottish connection, he took some bags home. Since, when members of his family such the Queen and William and Kate have visited Canada, Hastings has been called to deliver flour to Rideau Hall.

But it’s not just royalty. The public is catching Red Fife fever, too.

"I was mobbed at a food show a few years ago," Hastings says. "That was my first inkling that Red Fife was so popular. There really was a buzzing among chefs."

In recent months Hastings’ organic, heritage flour has become a prized commodity in Ottawa: it’s on display on the bar in Domus, it’s used at the Urban Pear and you can buy retro cotton bags of it at several local health-food stores.

"We would switch to using her flours exclusively if we could get enough supply," says Jennifer Heagle of the Red Apron on Gladstone Avenue in Ottawa. "She came into our shop in January and we’ve tested the different grades of flour in our scones and other baked goods. The products are wonderful and using her flour would help us move toward our goal of being as local and as organic as possible."

Are people going crazy over Hastings’ Red Fife wheat flour just because it tastes different?

Its taste and texture are prized by bakers — bread bakers I know are particularly passionate about the Heritage Hard Red Spring Wheat.

But there’s another factor that’s making people seek out the heritage grain: a new book, Wheat Belly, by U.S. cardiologist William Davis, which zoomed to top of bestseller lists just before Christmas and which is still in the Top 20 on Amazon.ca.

In Wheat Belly, Davis makes the argument that everything from unattractive stomach bulges to diabetes, heart disease and stroke can be attributed to modern wheat, which, he says, has been hybridized into what he calls a "Frankengrain" that’s so bad for us, it should carry a surgeon general’s warning.

The only way around the unhealthy outcome is to avoid wheat altogether, or to seek out the rare heritage breeds, such as Red Fife, that have not been altered, Davis says.

"I think a heck of a lot of people read that book or got it for Christmas," says Hastings, laughing. "I went to the Peterborough Market after Christmas and there was this huge lineup of people wanting to talk about heritage grains. "It was my first indication that people were hungry for information on that topic."

Heagle at the Red Apron is intrigued by this line of thought.

"My son is gluten-intolerant — I think a lot of us are. But I don’t think everyone has always been allergic to gluten; I think it’s a recent phenomenon. I wonder if we could move more to other grains, like spelled, and to heirloom varieties of wheat, if a lot of these problems would disappear."

"I’m committed to organic farming," she says. "It seemed to me that maybe a heritage grain that hadn’t been altered to withstand herbicides and other modern practices would survive better on an organic farm.

"I started off with ancient grains like spelled. After five years, I became a member of Slow Food based in Italy and Red Fife was being talked about in Europe before it was being talked about in North America.

"When I realized how good it was, I got a set of stone mills so it could be cold-processed, rather than steel rollers that heat the grains. The cold process maximizes the nutritional value of the grain."

Is Hastings a farmer from way back and was this all part of her ultimate plan?

Not at all. Originally from Northern Ireland, she was a teacher and artist in Toronto. After she and her husband retired to their cottage near Madoc, they had a visit from their daughter’s future brother-inlaw, who had studied organic farming in Germany. He was bemoaning the fact that he would never be able to afford a farm at home in Germany and was wondering what farms were selling for in Canada. Hastings called a local real-estate agent who said he an unbelievably good bargain at had just come on the market ("I think now he was a very good salesman," she says.) The young German couldn’t afford the farm, but Hastings thought it was a good investment, bought it and installed him as the farmer. After a year, however, he fell in love with a German girl and decided to move home.

"He told me there would be no problem — he’d teach me everything I needed to know to be the farmer," Hastings says laughing. "He still visits to check on how things are going."

So she does all the farming herself?

The diminutive Hastings is now a grandmother, but she still works the land from sunrise to sunset from April to October, sometimes getting help from family and neighbours.

"I like the work," she says. "I like being outdoors. It’s an extension of gardening. You’re producing something off the land that people are going to enjoy eating. That’s very rewarding.

"I’ve had calls from people as far away as Alberta and Saskatchewan. One man wanted to tell me that he’d been diabetic all his life, but that after reading Wheat Belly he gave up all but heritage wheat and within three weeks his blood sugar was normal for the first time in his life."

How big is her farm? Does she grow just Red Fife wheat?

The farm is 727 acres, but divided into lots of smaller fields of different crops, such as buckwheat, flax, rye, spelled, hemp, oats, soybeans and Red Fife wheat.

"I think the Red Fife and spelt are the two I sell the most of," says Hastings. "Since a lot of people have become gluten intolerant, I’m also selling more buckwheat since it has no gluten. Bakers like the rye flour to make their sourdough starters."

She says the smaller fields make the farming less efficient, but are necessary for the crop rotation used in organic farming.

"I’ve kept the hedgerows between the fields because I like the birds nesting in them and the birds pick off the insects that would damage my crops."

Her newest crop is hops.

"I planted hops for the first time last year. I think maybe it will be another year before they are ready to make beer. Church Key (a brewery near Peterborough) has already on a couple of occasions made a delicious beer from the Red Fife."

Where can buy her flour and what is it called?

It’s called CIPM Growers and Millers of Organic Grains. CIPM doesn’t stand for anything, says Hastings. "It was the name of the farm when I bought it. I suppose I should change it to something else."

At the Red Apron, they make these scones with CIPM Red Fife flour; Olivia Maple Chocolate, which comes from Cantley, Que. and which they now sell in their store; cherries come from Warner Farm in Beamsville, Ont.; and La ferme alska maple syrup from Quebec’s Eastern Townships, which they also sell.

Makes: about one dozen

4 cups (1 L) Red Fife Flour

1.5 teaspoons (7 mL) baking powder

2 teaspoons (10 mL) salt

1 1/2 cups (375 mL) butter, chilled and cubed

4 eggs

3/4 cup (175 mL) cream (35 per cent)

1/2 cup (125 mL) maple syrup

2 teaspoons (10 mL) cider vinegar

1 cup (250 mL) chopped Olivia maple chocolate (76 per cent)

1 cup (250 mL) chopped cherries (preferably frozen)

1. Whisk together all of the dry ingredients until combined.

2. Cut the butter into small pieces and work into the flour by hand until the mixture resembles small peas. Tip: You can do this step in a food processor on the pulse setting, but be careful not to overmix.

3. Whisk the eggs with the cream, maple syrup and vinegar. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the liquid. Add the chocolate and cherries. Fold gently until combined. Do not overmix.

4. Scoop out the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper using a 1/2 cup (125 mL) scoop.

5. Bake at 325 °F (165 °C) for 30 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. Test centre for doneness using a toothpick.

6. While scones are still warm, you can drizzle with a little bit of maple syrup or sprinkle with maple sugar.

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